Why the nutrient is based subsidy policy in fertilizers, a failure?
• Simply stated: old habits die hard. Consumption of urea has increased in the first few months of the NBS policy, contrary to expectations that it would lead to a balanced use of fertilisers. The sale of urea in kharif 2010 season up to July 31 rose to 73.59 lakh tonne from 68.05 lakh tonne in the same period last year. Overall urea use last kharif stood at 136.65 lakh tonne compared with 120.03 lakh tonne in the previous year. • Consequently, the central government’s subsidy spend on the fertiliser will remain high, defying projections of a lower bill in 2010-11. • Industry analysts believe that deregulation of urea imports will result in lower subsidy bills. Urea accounts for more than half of the country’s fertiliser consumption. Currently, only government agencies are allowed to import the fertiliser. • In 2009-10, the fertiliser subsidy spend of the Centre on indigenous urea totalled 17580.25 crore and another 6999.63 crore was spent on imported urea. In volume terms, imported ur
